"The Biden administration has signaled its intent to rejoin the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in order to potentially counter China’s influence over the group, reversing a major Trump-era policy decision.
Hugh Dugan, former senior director for International Organization Affairs at the National Security Council during the Trump administration, told Fox News Digital that the U.S. desire to remain involved in the group despite seeing little change in its operation shows a ‘juvenile’ desire for global acceptance...
Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital that Biden’s decision to rejoin UNESCO was a ‘flagrant violation of the long-standing will of Congress.’
‘The idea that the United States has to pay the U.N., and its bodies and agencies that flagrantly violate American interests, in order to promote American interests on China or Israel or anything else turns logic on its head,’ Bayefsky said. ‘Given there are so many other more important means to counter Chinese influence if we wanted to, the China story here is a fig-leaf for the Biden administration slamming Israel.’
‘It's an absolutely shocking departure from decades of bipartisan congressional policy agreement that has constantly prioritized a negotiated settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict,’ she added, stressing that rejoining UNESCO and paying ‘hundreds of millions’ to the group ‘upends American foreign policy and the long-standing view of Congress.’
The Biden administration made clear that it intended to rejoin UNESCO shortly after President Biden took office. The president plans to request an appropriation of $150 million from Congress for fiscal year 2024 to pay UNESCO, with similar payments to follow in ensuing years...
Dugan, who has served under some 11 U.S. ambassadors to the world body, specifically criticized the Democrats for feeling ‘embarrassed or ashamed’ for publicly pursuing interests within these groups and caving to UNESCO’s financial requirements without getting back what the U.S. needs or wants from the group.
‘This idea that if we're not there, we're not popular, or that… we aren’t being loved by them – it's such a juvenile approach to our participation in these major institutions and that that our interests apparently are not important,’ Dugan said, adding that other countries feel free ‘to pursue their national agendas through these organizations.’
‘Somehow the Democrats and the administration don't believe that it's appropriate for the U.S. to promote its national interests in these organizations, and if we do so we're called out by others on it, then we feel embarrassed or ashamed, and we have to atone by basically participating without criticism, funding them fully and hoping that people like us,’ he concluded.'"